Prison Break on Repessen
Prelude Lore Most of the Lucem Ferre Black Templar fleet comes out of the warp roughly where expected in the Alovus system, and are immediately surprised by the cacophony on the wireless. Many frequencies are jammed, some continuously, others only intermittently. Operators speak through the breaks in the screeching, saying suspicious and contradictory things. The Sol Invictus is still missing, though the fleet astropaths claim that they can still distantly sense the mind of the Sol Invictus Astropath, for whatever that means. An operator claiming to represent Inquisitor Gorgo asks the fleet to proceed to Jupiter Dolchenus, which is in line with their last orders from Marshal Dagobert, so the fleet sets course accordingly. En route, an urgent distress call is received from the nearby Prison world Repessen, asking for urgent aid, and claiming that a Heretic Space Marine vessel is nearly in orbit. The commanding Templar decides to split the fleet again, and sends a single Strike Cruiser with it's company of Black Templars to secure Repessen and destroy the heretics. The heretic astartes voidship avoids close action, firing blocking volleys, and changing orbits to maintain distance, so the opposing astartes cruisers never come to blows, but each takes the opportunity to land forces near the prison headquarters. As it passes over the prison compound, the heretic cruiser uses it's bombardment cannon to destroy some of the prison facilities, specifically the garrison buildings for the guards, some of the walls and watch towers, and the main gate. Some prisoners escape, but most are still contained in their cells for now... The opposing astartes ground forces hasten to the area to fight for control over the crumbling prison. Board Setup and Armies Place ruins over as much of the board as convenient. There should be lots of places to be out of LOS. Dawn of War deployment (12" zones on the long table edges) Defending Imperium player chooses which side they want, and places three objectives, each on a separate ruin. Objectives can be on any level of the ruins, but must be 12" from each other. Each side musters a battleforged army of 2000 pts. Emperor's Children only for Chaos (no daemons). Imperium may take a mix of Imperial Guard and Black Templar detachments. Astartes forces may take any units, but the Guard detachment(s) should be mostly infantry (representative of a prison planet garrison that has had it's best fighting units stripped away during the recent years of war and rebellion in the Alovus system), with at most one tank and no artillery vehicles. Any number of Chimera APCs are okay. Attacking Chaos player deploys their whole army in their deployment zone, or off the table. No deepstriking on turn 1, as usual. Defending Imperium player deploys their all Black Templar units in their deployment zone, or off the table. All Imperial Guard units must begin on the table, but may be set up anywhere more than 3" from the Chaos deployment zone. No deepstriking on turn 1, as usual. Imperium player should be able to deploy many or most of their units out of LOS, if they desire. Chaos takes the first turn. Normal variable game length: game continues on a 3+ starting after round 5, etc. 2 points for each objective controlled at the end of the game. Normal 1 point each for Slay the Warlord, LineBreaker, and First Strike. Special Rule: Escaping Prisoners To compensate for the Guard forces beginning with control of the board, a free and fresh unit of 10 Chaos Cultists (with any wargear as modeled) may be set up by the Chaos player, at the end of each of their movement phases after the first, wholly within 6" of any table edge. This conceivably could allow them to be set up directly into combat (within 1" of enemy models), so be careful. I only have 42 cultist models, so that also imposes a ceiling on the power of this special rule. These cultists, not being part of any formation, have no legion keywords (so auras won't benefit them) and get no legion trait (as usual). Battle Report and Fluff